about here in the west indies. by 1520, 20 years later, you can see now how their spanish empire is, in fact, expanding here. of course, we carry this forward a few more decades. you see the creation of a great spanish american empire. yeah. >> when did the kind of realization of north america -- >> the colonization of north america doesn't begin until early in the 17th century. here you see the route that john cabot takes in 1497, but it won't be until jamestown and st. augustine is established. st. augustine, 1565, but we're a few generations away. a few generations away from permanent settlement on the north american. think for a moment what would the attraction be here. if you could come down here,

they're finding these great kingdoms and enormous civilizations rich beyond measure. who wants to go up here? what's the attraction up here? at this point not a lot. not a lot. you don't really want to go to maine, do you? not in the wintertime. down here. so it will take a white, but yes, it comes later. this is first. this is first. and here we see an example of the spanish and portuguese explorations between 1400 and 1600. look at this. it's an incredible accomplishment. it is these navigators, the spanish and portuguese navigators. before the french, before the english. french and english come into this business late, late. whether it comes to europeans and european expansion, you can see magellan in 1520, cortez or columbus obviously, ka bra,

magellan mastering it is capacity to sail to distant lands. this tremendous technological, emotional, physical triumph of being able to sail to distant lands. this is the beginning of the establishment of this european expansion into other parts of the world. so on october 12th remember christ dpopher columbus. don't realize that he took the prize. don't remember that. remember what he accomplished and the sadness in the sense of his life in that he didn't understand the great triumph that was his. any questions? anything i haven't covered that you might be curious about? >> they just went south and didn't go north? >> who didn't go south? >> why didn't they? >> because there's nothing to attract them. in the 16th century it's the incas and aztecs.

this is where the action here. here and, of course, in india. they do sort of poke around on the northern coast here a little bit, but there's nothing that attracts them there. why would you come up here where there aren't any great kingdoms and gold mines and silver mines. they were patient to seize the wealth here. mackenzie. >> wasn't magellan the first one to sail under south america. >> first european. >> wasn't that huge because it was really rocky waters and huff? >> exactly. >> is that why the panama canal was built? >> very treacherous navigation. you're absolutely right. speaks to his accomplishment assist a navigator. yes, very, very treacherous sailing around. treacherous then and today. very long. very long. so you're right. in the 20th century we build the panama canal that cuts all of that off. >> did magellan's crew settle in

australia or -- >> no, they come into the philippines. they don't set foot in australia. they never touch australia. they come across the islands, borneos and around the cape of good hope and back home. australia is one of the late discoveries, one of the later discoveries. yeah. other questions? yeah. >> so it seems it was the french right after that? >> yes, it's john cabot. i'm story jacques cartier in the 1530s will be sailing here in the north. what cattier and what cabot are looking for is what once the europeans understand that there's something here called north america, what they really want then is what do you think? what do they want then? they want a way through it. they're still fixated on getting to the east. so jacques cartier and john cabot are looking for a water

route. a water route that can get them through this obstacle. they view this an obstacle. they're looking for a water route through north america to get them to the pacific. is there one, by the way? is there someone? >> a northwest passage? >> there is a water route. you can go to the atlantic to the pacific by water. it's the arctic route called the northwest passage, which explores will look for in the 18th and 19th and today in the 20th century just as a little footnote, this today northwest passage is becoming perhaps more practical. as long as it was ice-cover pendergraph and only opened for a very limited season. it wasn't very practical. what's working to make it more track cal today? global warming. global warming. so if we continue to have global warming, we can send vessels here. still difficult because of the ice and the seasons. if it continues to get warm and

the ice cap melts you have a direct water passage across the top. >> are there records of how magellan survived such a long voyage? >> yeah, yeah. his his pilot, his pilot, magellan's pie let kept a log well worth reading. you can imagine that the real challenge they have, wouldn't there be lots of challenges. there's one challenge on long voyages that's going to bedevil these folks a long time. it's a challenge of scurvy and disease. on these long, long pass ajs, of course, the men get ill and come down with scurvy and tremendous losses. scurvy is a pretty per niche yus disease and they have to deal with that. magellan does get killed in the

philippines. yeah. >> how many men would typically be on a crew? >> that's a great question. how many men? on columbus's three ships there were approximately 97 men. approximately 97. we're not too certain. close to 100 men. probably given the size the vessels you had make 40 men on santa maria and 30-30 on the oers. you would probably take more men with you than you actually needed to run the vessel, and the reason for that would be you're going to loose some. with when they left home, they're probably overmanned, but you have 30, 40 men. i forgot how many men were aboard magellan's vessel when she left, but a fair number. tremendous attrition and death. yeah.

>> would you say they're qualified individuals and it was like they were penalizing them, more of a lower grade? >> great question about columbus's crew. there's the old wive's tale that they emptied the jails. the only way to get people to go with christopher columbus was to empty the jails. not true. in the 20th century, in the 1930s, '40s and '50s there was a wonderful historian. her name was alice gould, and mrs. gould was an incredible researcher. incredible researcher. came from quincy, massachusetts, by the way. she spent years and years in the archives in spain and elsewhere researching that question. who were the men that sailed. of the 100 or so men aboard, alice gould managed to find the records of about 90 of them. just an incredible accomplishment. from her evidence and her research, it would seem that, no, these were experienced

seamen. these were men that were there before. there must have been irishmen aboard that made it happen or a frenchman or an englishman. no, no. columbus was italian, but everybody else was spanish. all the seamen were good, experienced sailors. they weren't criminals, et cetera, et cetera. they were good, which probably aaccounts for the sailing over and coming back, yeah. good question. good question. other questions? i've kept you long enough i suppose, huh? don't forget you don't have a paper tomorrow. actually, i don't think i have to remind you of that. i'll see you next week, so have a great weekend. american history tv in

primetime continues on friday night at 8:00 eastern with a visit to washington, d.c.'s civil war defenses. at 8:30 explore the recently discovered quarters of clara barton's missing soldier's office. at 9:30 learn about the transition from slavery to freedom as told through the gilmore cabin at james madison's home, montpelier. at 10:00 a tour of the mansion of frederick pabst. you can watch it friday night at c-span3 and anytime on our website, cspan.org/history. next on american history tv, a tour of the 1607 jamestown settlement. later history professor william fowler talks about christopher columbus and the discovery of the americas. >> spend the weekend with wichita, kansas. saturday at noon eastern litary

live, robert weems on business in black and white and dennis farney on the founding of beechcraft. also browse the rare book collection at water mark west's rare books. sunday experience early plains life at old cow town museum, the early days of flight at kansas aviation mee assume. two participants from the kansas civil rights moouch movement in 1968 they sat down for it. once a month they explore it a lot of cities across america from wichita, kansas on c-span 2 and 3. >> this is c-span3 with politics and public affairs programming throughout the week and every weekend 48 hours of people and events tell the american story on american history tv. get our schedules and see past programs at our websites. you can join in the conversation on social media sites.

>> next on american history tv william kelso takes us on a tour of jamstown settlement. he discovered the site on the james river in 1607. >> i'm bill kelso, the director of the projects that have been going on for 18 years. what i'm going to do is to give you little sort of lecturettes at different places about the property and talk about -- a little bit about the history of the jamestown and a little bit about geography and the history of the project and then we go to each of the sites that are open right now, the trenches. you promise this was in the trenches, so we're getting in the trench, at least one of them. well, you are on one of the few

islands that you can be on along the james river. that's one of the reasons why it was chosen as the first colony. we're about 35 miles from hampton roads or the opening to the ocean. the river goes forever into the mountains and gets different names and branches. in richmond there are waterfalls and it's not navigatable from here to there. that was important because the colonists found it out. they didn't know it in the beginning. that give us a setting. jamestown, the whole idea was to put together by man that you ner heard of captain bath that you will mu gosnal. he was a private tear that captured spanish ships in the late 16th sent and therefore gave all the riches to the

queen. so he was a favorite guy, and so he had had the idea of establishing the colony after he knew there was one already tried. in roanoke island off of north carolina, which became famously known as the lost colony and it's still lost by the way, no one to find the people. that was in 1580s. so this is 20 years later. he felt that there should be a permanent colony, and one attempt that he made in 1602 you may have heard of, if you're from massachusetts or the new england area, that he set up -- he tried to put a colony on what is now elizabeth isles. there's a town up there next to martha's vineyard. it lasted about six weeks. the indian trading didn't work out the way he thought it would. he went back and nobody died,

but he had the experience of how to navigate in the new world. he then went back and had connections, and that's the way it works. it still works that way. one of his -- some of his relatives were in the court, so he could get the charter that sir walter rouly had to call niz in the real world. he had the legal means to do it. he had another relatives who was one of the richest merchants in england. he had a way of funding an expedition to virginia. he put the scheme together in otley hall in england and had a connection through another man who brought in captain john smith. one of the earliest modern

corporations was put foeg. in late 1606 they decide to bring three ships, 105 colonists, all men -- well, men, three boys, and left in late december of 1606. may 13th is where they land on jamstown island, so that was a problem. they came in here with a food deficit right away because it took so long to get here. they were instructured to go 100 miles from the coast so they'd be protected from any raids from the spanish. that was the real fear, although they had a treaty in 1604 where they weren't supposed to worry about them. they're the falls of the river at richmond. can't go 100 miles, so the fall back was to settle on some island that was strong by nature is the quote. strong by nature means it's surrounded by water, so it could

be protected. they also decided and this is important, they xhoez the island too because the channel was so close to the shore, they could tie the ships. now, the channel -- well that ferryboat out there is in the channel. so the conventional wisdom was that she tie the ships there and that's where they have the for the and it was built. it washed away. when i came out here the first time in 1963. so, the 104th command have a rough summer. rough is an understatement. more than half died in the first summer, and they began to realize what a difficult operation this is going to be and how really underfunded they were, understaffs and underfunded. that sounds like most nonprofits like ours. jamestown never changed, i guess. but they got through that and

then smith finally leaves in '69. there's another period that was "nascar now" as the starving time. the name tells you what happened. there were probably only 60 people left alive out of 215 in 1610. so they pack up and leave, and so this would not be the first permanent english settlement had not at that very moment awe new splice group come in. the real resident governor lord delaware came in with over 100 troops and they jump started the operation. from that point the county is going to make it. that's the thumbnail history the earliest years. the reason i stick to the earliest years but it dates to that period, and that seminole event has been an important thing for other ng what we found

beneath the ground. if you follow me down here i'll show you where we started and why. a lot of people wonder where do you start digging? when i first came to jamestown, i was so excited because i had read in a footnote in a history book up up in ohio, northern ohio where i'm from, that there was there was a jams town. mostly american history, the modern american history. is part that is the european offshoot of american history begins aat plymouth. that's the whole story, and we have the thanksgiving and everything. it's reinforced every year that's where everything begins. there was a place in 1607, not 1620, a successful attempt to plant a colony. and that's jamestown. but it failed. i mean, that's the impression you get when you read any standard history and maybe hopefully that's changing.

so when i came out, i said i want to walk the ground where john smith and pocahontas walked. i came out here, and there was a park ranger here. he said you're going to get wet because it's out in the river and gone. you can't do that. i got to looking around. i wasn't an archaeologist, but i looked around and saw a cut through the soil in the bank not far from here, and it showed three different layers of soil. that's important as i show you how we work with that process. there was a pile of clay. you could tell it had been put in, and there was a ridge behind it of clay. under that was a dark, black layer of rich dirt. the top layer said civil war and had some civil war art fak fakts and then it said colonial and it had pottery sticking out. under that is indian, and there were stone tools. ed i said what is this? it's pretty interesting. we were on at that time the

piece of -- it's really not part of the national park. you're on private property. this is owned by preservation virginia, which is then known as the association for the preservation of virginia. he said well, we've never had a chance to look here or something. he gave me that look like, hey, maybe something's here. what's that? i put that in the back of my mind and became an archaeologist and started to work in virginia and georgia and the caribbean and other places. no one proved that fort washed away. the horizon was the 400th anniversary of the settlement here. wouldn't it be a great thing to do to actually find what's being commemorated. i talked to the landowners in the vedz operation of virginia for ten years actually and tried to say here's a plan. let's do this.

i said i'm sure it's there. i mean, i wrote that out. we're going to find this. so they agreed in 1993 and began digging right where you stand right here. why right here? well, my theory was because that church we were standing next to is a 17th century architectural feature. i thought, well, one of the documents said that the church was in the midst of the fort. dp that's the church, then if i dig about here. between here and that sea wall i come up with a different color soil where upright logs, and the palisades and it was clearly a palisade of a triangular shape for it to begin to appear. i started it by myself right here, one shovel, one wheelbarrow, and i couldn't hold back. i wanted to go -- i knew i had a

dpra grant that wouldn't kick in and help other people. i started here, and the first day i was digging right under the grass and i came up with a piece of pottery. i was roped in, and this woman was here with her son watching this guy pretty skeptical. and she finally said to me, what are you doing? you know,pele know you're out h digging in sacred properties? i had that pottery, and so i looked at her and i was pretty manic at the time because i knew this pottery was old enough. i said i'm finding james fort. she sort of backed away with her son, come on, bobby, let's not upset the nice man. she said that. i hope she came back with him. that was 1994, and here what i had done, what we had done luckily enough was to dig in this place, which turned out to be a filled-in cellar of a building that we've replicated above that we found, you know,

pieces of by finding where a post had been put in the ground and let the dark circle stained in the soil. for each one of them they make a patte pattern. there was a cellar and we found an impact helmet and you see armor in the exhibit before you go. please see that. and the dates of coins, all this stuff was coming out of here. it was military enough and old enough. wow, this is james fort. it took many years to connect all the dots to be able to tell where and how the fort laid out from that point. i wasn't sure if we were on the west side or outside or east side for a long time. we announced in 1996 that some parts of the fort is here. as it turned out almost 90% had escaped erosion. and there's been so many people that came over here and died,

their possessions were just scattered and buried in things like acellar, ditches, wells. wherever there's a hole in the ground it got filled with amazing artifacts. right now the collection is over a million and a half objects have been found here over 18 years, and the way it's done is you open up an area usually on a 10-foot square, find a streak that goes through that'sle palisade line. we say we'll follow these things a square at a time and open up a big area finally to understand it all. we see a big area at the next stop. all right. let's head to the trenches. if you all would just go up on the hill, i'll go down on the trenches here.

>> this is probably the largest trench we opened up at wunt time. what you're looking at is the site of the 1608 church. if you were saying to yourself, what church? the giant post holes dug down at much as 6 feet or maybe 8 for each post. if you begin to imagine a post out of each hole here, and another, and each one has a pattern to where the orange flags are located. so i knew from a description written by a man by the name of william who was a chronicler of the whole operation in 1610 wrote the church is 24 feet wide and 60 feet long.

so the minute we find the enormous post holds and 12-foot centers it added up. what we do is we open an area, that is take it down to the grade that has not been disturbed, ands it this is it he here. at that point point look at the outlines of seven-day outlo outlook --out lines of this clay is detectable if you have one of these. you scrape down really carefully. it's hard to show up since it's dry, but this is mixed soil right here. there's yellow splochs and lighter stuff and darker stuff. on the sides it's very uniform. that's never been dug into befo before. this has, and these purple flags

mark -- what do you think? graves. exactly right. there are four graves here that line up in the extreme eastern end of this post hole pattern, and that really tells -- is the telling evidence that said this is the church. so the important people are buried here. we know of also from records there was a continual interplay and what's in the records and where can you find the ground back and forth. we know from the time period that the church stood, which was from 1608 from 1616 according to record, there were four people buried. four people that would have have status here that we know of. there's the original cleric reverend hunt could be here. he died close to the time the church was put up in 1608. could be. and i would assume that he would

be this guy right here. there was a night and two captains that died at that time. we have a plan to uncover the remains and see if they can identify these people begins next spring. the whole church was the location lost, although there was a spanish spy map, and that's what this little sketch is based on, and that had an x. and i always thought x might mark the spot, you know. it does. this is where the church is, right? it's a little off center. it's not exactly sfr. you know, i had my ambition to walk where they walked. i got to pocahontas, because you can't see this post hole, but you will when we come around. there's one right here. this makes a rectangular space that would be the chansel.